Hugo Grotius, 1583-1645; Willem de Groot, 1597-1662, ed.
Hug. Grotii Poemata, per Guil. Grotium denuo edita, aucta, & emendata.
Lugduni Batav.: apud Hieronymum de Vogel, 1639. Contemporary red morocco, gilt.
Milton concluded his six years of quiet study with a remarkable eighteen-month tour to various centers of European antiquity and intellectual life, notably Italy. Early in his tour, in Paris in April 1638, he was able to meet one of his great intellectual heroes, the Dutch legal theorist Hugo Grotius, exiled from Holland but then serving as the Swedish ambassador to France. Among Grotius's Latin writings were two significant for Milton's own later poetry, the drama Adamus Exsul (1601) and the poem Christus patiens (published 1619). (The library's earliest edition of Milton's third great neo-Latin poetic influence, with Buchanan and Grotius, Marco Girolamo Vida's Christiad, first published in 1535, dates only from 1731, and was not included in this exhibit.)
Milton's Florence
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588,
"Florentia,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber I
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1572]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.
Milton's first prolonged stay in Italy was in Florence, which he reached in late summer 1638. It was a city, he recalled, "which I have always more particularly esteemed for the elegance of its dialect, its genius, and its taste." There he met the poets of the Svogliati Academy, and visited the blind, elderly Galileo, at his villa south of the city. He returned to Florence on his way back north in February 1639. Eighteen miles from Florence lay the thick "autumnal leaves that strow the brooks/Of Vallombrosa."
Milton's Rome
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588, "Roma,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber I
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1572]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.
During the late fall of 1638, Milton spent two months in Rome, "viewing the antiquities of that renowned city."
. . . an imperial city stood,
With towers and temples proudly elevate
On seven small hills, with palaces adorned,
Porches and theatres, baths, aueducts,
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
Gardens and groves . . .
The Renaissance basilica of St. Peter's, Rome, to which Milton alludes in the Pandemonium scene ofParadise Lost, had recently been completed, in the years since this late sixteenth-century city view was printed, and he was also able to see the classical manuscripts of the Vatican library. He returned to Rome at the very end of 1638, for a further two months, before moving north, by way of Venice, towards home.
Milton's Naples
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588,
"Neapolis,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber I
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1572]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.
In November 1638, Milton pushed south to Naples, where he was befriended by Giovanni Manso, Marquis de Villa, to whom he addressed a Latin verse-epistle, later printed in his first volume of verse,Poems English and Latin (1645). "During my stay," Milton recalled, Manso "gave me singular proofs of his regard; he himself conducted me round the city, and to the palace of the viceroy; and more than once paid me a visit at my lodgings." Naples was the southernmost point of Milton's journey; in late December, "melancholy intelligence . . . of civil commotions in England" led Milton to curtail his original plans and turn back north. "I thought it base," he wrote, "to be traveling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home."
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso
Lodovico Ariosto, 1474-1533.
Orlando furioso di M. Lodovico Ariosto, tutto ricorretto, & di nuove figure adornato.
Edited by Girolamo Ruscelli and with a life by Giovan Battista Pigna.
In Venezia: heirs of Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1580. Modern vellum, gilt.
Two of Milton's great heroes as modern epic poets were Italian, Ariosto and Tasso, and Milton's commonplace notebook includes reference to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and he quoted (in his own translation) from the poem in his own first prose work Of Reformation (1641). On his Italian journey, Milton passed through the northern city of Ferrara, where Ariosto had enjoyed the Duke's patronage.
Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata, I
Torquato Tasso, 1544-1595.
La Giervsalemme liberata di Torqvato Tasso. Con le figure di Bernardo Castello, e le annotationi di Scipio Gentili, e di Giulio Gvastavini.
Genova: [G. Bartoli] 1590. Engraved title page and plates by Agostino Carracci and Giacomo
Franco. Old citron morocco binding, paned sides, and gilt leaves.
In Naples, Milton found a more direct and personal link to his other Italian poetic hero, Tasso, through his contact with the now-elderly Manso, who had been Tasso's patron and to whom Tasso had addressed his Discourse on Friendship.
Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata, II
Torquato Tasso
Goffredo, overo Gierusalemme liberata, poema heroico del S.Torquato Tasso, nel quale sono state aggiunte molte stanze leuate, con le varie lettioni; & postiui gli argomenti, & allegorie a ciascun canto d'incerto auttore. Con l'aggiunta de' cinque canti del sig. Camillo Camilli, & I loro argomenti, del sig. Franceso Melchiori opitergino.
In Vinegia: heirs of Francesco de' Franceschi, 1600. Disbound; bookplate of James H. Hammond. Gift of John Shaw Billings.
In his The Reason of Church Government (1641), Milton would list Tasso with Homer, Virgil and the Book of Job among his models in epic poetry. Milton's epigraph from Tasso's Gierusalemme liberata in his tribute to Manso (published in his 1645 Poems) was a graceful allusion to Manso's earlier patronage of Tasso as Milton sought similar patronage for himself.
Galileo and Freedom of Thought
Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642; Carlo Manolessi, fl. 1659, ed..
Opere di Galileo Galilei . . . In questa nuoua editione insieme raccolte, e di varij trattati dell' istesso autore non più stampati accresciute.
19 pts. 2 vols. Bologna: per gli hh del Dozza, 1655-56 [v.1, 1656]. Contemporary calf.
Bookplates of Edward Lord Suffield and Thomas Clifford Allbutt.
Among the most moving incidents of Milton's Italian journey was his visit in Florence to the great astronomer Galileo, now blind and still living under restrictions for (in Milton's acerbic summary fromAreopagitica, 1644) "thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought." Milton refers to one of Galileo's hand-made telescopes in Paradise Lost, Book I, when he describes the "moon, whose orb/Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views/At ev'ning from the top of Fiesole."
Milton and the Phlegraean Fields
Georg Hofnagel,
"Oriens Mirabilium Sulphureorum Motum apud Puteolos (Campos Flegreos . . . Neapolitanae),"
[heading on verso: "Forum Vulcani, vulgo Solfataria" ]
from Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber Tertius
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1581]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.
Seest you yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful. . .
Paradise Lost, Book I
As the figures in this engraving suggest, the Phlegraean Fields, a few miles south of Naples, where sulphurous smoke spurted from the hot earth, awed Renaissance travelers to Italy, and the scene has been suggested as influencing Milton's depiction of Hell.
Visiting the Sibyl's Cave
Georg Hofnagel,
"Antrum Sybyllae Cumanae,"
from Braun and Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber Tertius
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1581]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.
. . . once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in Times long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-saw what future dayes should bring to pass.
Milton, At a Vacation Exercise.
The Sybil's cave at Cumae, near Naples, in Campania, the farthest outpost of Greek settlement in mainland Italy, is described in Vergil's Aeneid, Book VI. Hofnagel's engraving, based on his visit to Italy in 1577-78, nicely captures the classical allure that sites such as this held for Renaissance travelers.
The young Milton as a European poet
John Milton,
Poems of Mr. John Milton: both English and Latin, compos'd at several times Printed by his true copies. The songs were set in musick by Mr. Henry Lawes . . . Printed and publish'd according to order.
London: Printed by Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at the signe of the Princes Arms in Pauls Church-yard, 1645. First edition. Lacking portrait. Purchased for the library by the Thomas Cooper Society, 1996.
It was just a few years after his Italian journey, in the middle of the English Civil War of the 1640s, that Milton published his first volume of poetry. While the volume is now treasured for such English works as "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," Comus and Lycidas, the separate title-page shown here for the second section of Latin poems, Joannis Miltoni Londinensis Poemata ... nunc primum edita, is also significant in indicating Milton's ambition for a European, not merely an English, poetic readership.
Religious controversy, I: Milton's first published prose work
John Milton,
Of reformation touching church-discipline in England: and the causes that hither-to have hindered it; two bookes written to a friend.
[London]: Printed for Thomas Underhill, 1641. Bookplate of F.E. Smith, Viscount Birkenhead.
The political tensions in the 1640s and the breakdown of Royal authority brought a new cultural significance to the printing press as an agent of public debate. Milton's own publisher commented that "the slightest pamphlet is nowadayes more vendible then the Works of learnedest men." Milton himself commented: "Liberty of speech was no longer subject to control . . . I saw that a way was opening for the establishment of real liberty . . . I therefore determined to relinqish the other pursuits in which I was engaged, and to transfer the whole of my talents and industry to this one important object." Milton's first published prose work, designed "To vindicate the spotless truth from an ignominious bondage," was a plea for the Reformation of the English church to be carried through more fully, rejecting the conservative countermovement towards episcopal authority under Archbishop Laud.
Religious controversy, II: the debate over episcopacy
[John Milton],
"Poscript,"
in Smectymnuus redivivus: being an answer to a book, entituled An humble remonstrance, in which the original of liturgy, episcopacy is discussed: and quaeries propounded concerning both: the parity of bishops and presbyters in Scripture demonstrated, the occasion of the imparity in antiquity discovered, the disparity of the ancient and our modern bishops manifested, the antiquity of ruling elders in the church vindicated, the prelatical church bounded composed by five learned and orthodox divines.
London: John Rothwell, 1660. Later three-quarter calf. Bookplate of Moses H. Grossman.
First published 1641, under the title: An answer to a booke entituled An humble remonstrance to the high court of Parliament. The pro-episcopalian Remonstrance had been published the previous year by the bishop and poet Joseph Hall (1574-1656). The five authors of this composite riposte were Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowe, the initial letters of whose names make up the pseudonym "Smectymnvvs." Thomas Young had been Milton's tutor when he was a child and remained a friend. The "Poscript" (p. 68-[73]) has been attributed to Milton himself (see Masson, Life of John Milton; Coleridge, 267).
Religious controversy, III
A directory for the publique worship of God, throughout the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Together with an ordinance of Parliament for the taking away of the Book of common-prayer: and for establishing and observing of this present directory throughout the kingdom of England, and the dominion of Wales. Die jovis, 13. martii, 1644.
London: printed for E. Tyler [etc.] 1644 [1645]
bound with: An ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the more effectuall puting in execution the Directory for publique worship: in all parish churches and chappells within the kingdome of England and dominion of Wales.
[London]: Printed by T. W. for Ed. Husband, Printer for the Honourable House of Commons, 1645.
Contemporary brown calf. Label of Hannah Gosling and signature of Maud Downing, 1919.
The Westminster Assembly of Divines, first proposed in Parliament in 1642, was charged with the revision of the Church's articles of belief, prayer book, and method of church government. This Directory was the first product of the Assembly to be completed, with the credal standards of the better-known Westminster Confession following only at the end of 1646. The Directory preface noted that "long and sad Experience hath made it manifest, that the Leiturgie used in the Church of England, (notwithstanding all the pains and Religious intentions of the Compilers of it) hath proved an offence, not only to the Godly at home; but also to the Reformed Churches abroad." The accompanying ordinance prescribed a fine of five pounds for a first offence in using the old Prayer Book in public worship, or even in a private house, with increased fines and up to a year's imprisonment for repeat offenders. Milton had briefly supported the Presyterian reformers of the Westminster Assembly, but he soon became alienated from the "Enforcers of Conscience," denouncing "New Presbyter" as "but Old Priest writ large."
Political controversy, I
Leycesters Common-wealth: Conceived, Spoken And published with most earnest protestation of all dutifull good will and affection towards this Realme; For whose good onely it is made common to many.
N.p.: n.p., 1641. First published in 1584, with title: The copie of a leter, vryten by a master of arte of Cambridge, to his friend in London. Engraved portrait of Leicester. Alfred Chapin Rogers Collection.
The new political atmosphere signalled by the first recalling of the English Parliament for over a decade, in November 1640, brought renewed interest in early writings suggesting limits on the Royal prerogatives. Among them was this influential fifty-year-old pamphlet about Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, that depicts Queen Elizabeth and her favorite Dudley as abusing their power by having Dudley's wife murdered. This significantly-timed republication was ordered to be suppressed as seditious in October 1641.
Political controversy, II
William Prynne, attrib., 1600-1669,
Tom-Tell-Troth, or A free discourse tovching the murmurs of the times, directed to His Majesty, by way of humble advertisement.
London: printed in the yeere 1642. Wing T 1786. Later tree-calf.
One of a small collection of pamphlets from the 1640s, which also includes Prynne's Romes master-peece. Or, The grand conspiracy of the pope and his Iesuited instruments, . . . Revealed out of conscience . . . by an agent sent from Rome, London: Michael Sparke, Senior, 1643. In 1637, with two Puritan allies, Prynne was sentenced by the notorious royal court, the Star Chamber, to have his ears cut off (a second such mutilation for Prynne), to be branded, and to be imprisoned without any outside contact. In November 1640, the new Parliament ordered the three men released, and Prynne became a focal point of political dissatisfaction, first against the King and then against parliament.
Domestic controversy, I
John Milton,
The doctrine and discipline of divorce : restor'd to the good of both sexes, from the bondage of canon law, and other mistakes, to the true meaning of Scripture in the law and gospel
compar'd: wherein also are set down the bad consequences of abolishing or condemning of sin, that which the law of God allows, and Christ abolish not: now the second time revis'd, and much augmented, in two books: to the Parliament of England, with the Assembly.
London : [n.p.], Imprinted in the year 1645.
Among the topics to which Milton directed his polemic was the episcopal control over marriage law, through the church courts. His sudden marriage in June 1642, when he was thirty-three, to the seventeen-year-old Mary Powell, did not start well, and the two were separated for the first three years of the Civil War, though subsequently reconciled. Milton asserted that:
-
Love in marriage cannot live or subsist unless it be mutual; and where love
cannot be, there can be left of Wedlock nothing, but the empty husk of an outside
Matrimony, as unpleasing to God, as any other kind of hypocrisy. . . . it is less a
breach of Wedlock to part with wise and quiet consent betimes, than still to soil
and profane that mystery of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual
distemper. . . . for wherein can God delight, wherein be worshipped, wherein be
glorified by the forcible continuance of an improper and ill-yoked couple.
Milton's radical protestant arguments for divorce on grounds of incompatibility were more idealistic than licentious, but to many contemporaries his tract seemed a shocking indicator of just where radicalism would lead.
Domestic controversy, II
Daniel Featley, 1582-1645.
"The Epistle Dedicatory,"
in his The dippers dipt. Or, The Anabaptists duck'd and plung'd over head and eares, at a disputation in Southwark. . . . a large and full discourse . . . with an application to these times.
London: Nicholas Bourne and Richard Royston, 1645. Contemporary calf.
Featley had been briefly Rector of All Hallows, Bread Street, London, near Milton's home, from 1626-28, before moving to the rectory of Acton. In the body of his book (p. 29), Featley refers only in general terms among the "errors of the Anabaptists" to the teaching that "a man may put away his wife," but in the dedication he makes specific reference to Milton, citing among recent Anabaptist publications "a Tractate on Divorce" that would allow "putting away wives for many other causes than that which our Saviour only approveth."
The transatlantic links of English Puritanism
John Cotton, 1584-1652.
The way of the churches of Christ in New England. Or the way of churches walking in brotherly equality, or co-ordination, without subjection of one church to another. Measured and examined by the Golden Reed of Sanctuary. Containing a full declaration of the church-way in all particulars.
London: Printed by M. Simmons, 1645.
The Cambridge-educated Cotton, the Puritan rector of the main church in Boston, Lincolnshire, had emigrated to Boston, Massachussetts in 1633. Significantly, this influential argument for the congregational church polity was printed by one of Milton's own London publishers.
The 1640s and the English radical tradition
John Reeve, 1608-1658, and Lodowick Muggleton, 1609-1698,
A remonstrance from the eternal God: declaring several spiritual transactions unto the Parliament, and commonwealth of England, unto . . . Lord General Cromwell, the council of state, the council of war and to all that love the Second Appearing. . . . Printed in the Year, 1653. And Re-Printed.
[London]: 1719.
The continuing underground influence of 1640s radicalism is shown in the strange survival of one of its most radical religio-political sects. Muggletonianism, which after a contentious start (its founders had a habit of cursing blasphemers with fatal results, and were imprisoned under Cromwell) survived for over three hundred years, with a substantial resurgence in the Romantic era. In the 1970s, the British marxist historian E.P.Thompson made contact with the last surviving Muggletonian, and the accumulated stock of Muggletonian publications (in storage in apple boxes since World War II) was sold up, with Thomas Cooper Library acquiring a good selection, especially of the early nineteenth-century reprintings.
The pamphlet wars and the freedom of the press
John Milton,
Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton For the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, To the Parlement of England.
London: Printed in the Yeare, 1644. First edition. Modern marbled calf, gilt.
The power of Milton as a prose-writer is most fully deployed in this still-influential argument for the freedom of the press, published during a divisive civil war, when the Puritan and parliamentary authorities sought to impose on public debate similar controls to those formerly exerted by the Crown and Bishops. England was changing, he told Parliament: "Methinks I see in my mind a mighty and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. . . . You cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse eagerly pursuing of the truth."
Introduction | Early Years | Italy & the 1640s | Civil War | Paradise Lost etc.
Milton's Reputation | Further References
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